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Students as Designers: Shaping Cardiff University’s Future of Digital Learning Together

Cardiff University Learning and Teaching Academy

Digital Education Team: Student Enablement Workstream

Marianna Majzonova, Hannah Salisbury, Punsisi Somaratne

Hello! Thank you for joining us for our presentation on Students as Designers: Shaping Cardiff University’s Future of Digital Learning Together. I’m Marianna and I’m here with my colleague Hannah. We work as a Digital Education Specialist and Learning Designer within the Digital Education team at Cardiff University's Learning and Teaching Academy. The project we're talking about today was shaped by a small team within the University called the Student Enablement workstream – we were hoping our colleague Punsisi, who played a big part in leading this team, could join us today but unfortunately, she couldn’t be here.

We’re going to talk to you about the history of the Student Champions scheme within Cardiff University, what we learned from those initial years and how we took it forward to involve students in one of most impactful projects of recent years: the move from the old blackboard Digital Learning Environment, or DLE, to the new Blackboard Ultra. We’ll talk about our approach to working with students, how it’s shaping the outcomes we’re seeing, and where we’d like to take the project next.

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Where it all started…

Support learning and teaching excellence

Improve the student experience

Enhance the relevance of digital education resources

Initial aims:

Scan QR code for info about previous Student Champions work

The Student Championship Scheme started in 2017 - a team of 6 learning technologists working with 8 students on 4 small projects within the Digital Education Team. Our initial aims were to support learning and teaching excellence, improve the student experience and enhance the relevance of digital education resources.

�At the time, we’d already looked at previous NSS results, run surveys to understand how students were feeling about their digital environment and online learning, and gathered plenty of feedback. It was clear that things could be better.

So, we launched an initiative that put students right at the centre of the solution: The student championship scheme. The idea was all about working in partnership with students to make meaningful changes together.

Our goal was to help staff get a clearer picture of how students experience digital learning, and to collaborate on projects around digital tools, engagement, and building digital skills. And who better to ask and work with than our own students?

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Over to you: �What do students bring to the table?

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Mentimeter results

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Addressing a call for improvement

Student voice becoming strong�
Realising the benefits�
Early adopters of Blackboard Ultra

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New Platform, New Challenges

Students were unaware of what's out there to support them

Resources
Training

Students' confidence levels were low in…

using the platform and engaging with resources
seeking help and training opportunities

Time to dig deeper…

What do students specifically need help with?
where are the gaps in support?

Digital Education Survey Results

We sent a Digital Education survey to all students across the institution, asking about their experiences during the pilot of the new platform. Internally we refer to the DLE as ‘Learning Central’, so for ease we’ll use this name going forward in the presentation.

Students told us they were unaware of what support they had to use Learning Central and adapt to the platform change. They weren’t sure where to find resources and what training they had access to. �

Due to this students’ confidence levels were low, mainly in using the platform, asking for help, identifying training opportunities and engaging with the resources on the platform. �

We wanted to dig deeper into these findings – what specifically did students need help with? They had indicated that they needed more support, but we believed we were providing support, so where were the gaps?

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Focus Group Findings

'I like the new Learning Central but...'

'I find it tricky to locating learning materials and assessment information'

'I need help using notification settings'

'I get confused by communication types'

'I'd like an overview of the LC space for each module'

'I'd like some top tips'

'I don't know the difference between course and organisation'

'I don't know how to find help'

There is a gap between how staff use Learning Central and what students expect from it.

Key Theme:

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Task: Close the gap!

Students out of a silo

Staff know what students expect

Leverage expertise from within

Work together

Students aren’t separate from what staff are doing on Learning Central, they’re a central part of it. So, how we design and use Learning Central should reflect what students actually need. That’s why we ran focus groups: to hear directly from students about their experiences and expectations. Their feedback helped us understand what’s working, what’s missing, and what could be improved.�

Our task was to close the gap between expectation and reality – to help students get what they expect from the platform, and ensure that staff are equipped to provide it. The only sensible way to do this was to leverage the expertise we already have – our students!

Over the next few slides we’re going to explain how we leveraged this expertise - we’re really proud of the outcomes we achieved, but moreso of the partnership we developed with the students along the way. We want to shine a light on the work we’ve done with our student champions and give you a sense of the difference they’ve made to their peers’ experience. But more than that, we want to share the story of the relationships we built with these groups—because without that connection, we don’t think the impact would have been nearly as strong.

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What did we do?

IT / LTA Focus groups to further understand LC experience

LC Good Practice video campaigns

Continuous updates to existing student resources

Digital Induction (different approaches to deliver digital induction for students)

Bookmarks on LC top tips

Awareness Raising Top Tips (screens across campuses)

Dig Ed Surveys Workshops (campaign design for LC enhancement)

Some examples of student enablement campaigns this year:

So what did we do?

Here are some examples of the work we’ve done over the past year to close the gap between students and staff expectations.�

First, we held focus groups with Anthology, who are the creators of Blackboard Ultra, and IT and collected students’ perceptions on how we can enhance their Learning Central experience. This gave students a chance to interact with an external company and influence the way they develop their product, and we also used this data to inform our other campaigns.�

With the help of student champions, we designed the Learning Central Good Practice Guide videos. These videos are aimed at staff – in them, student champions explained how they prefer to use learning central and have all of their materials laid out and communicated to them. �

We’ve been making regular updates to the student support resources on our Cardiff University intranet. With the help of student champions, the language and style of these resources were modified to match the students’ preferred tone and pace.

Next, we worked with the champs to co-design a set of slides about Learning Central, to be included in module induction slides on the first week of term. It means that all schools across the University share a standard approach to introducing Learning Central to newcomers. When we were creating these, student champions shared their different experiences of the induction process within their schools, which highlighted the importance of one approach for all and helped us to clarify exactly what needed to be included in the slides.

Students told us in the early focus groups that they wanted some top tips on using Learning Central. We designed a top tips bookmark and distributed them to students with the help of the libraries across the university. We made these 10 top tips into a digital campaign using the screens in the buildings across the university.�

Most recently, we conducted another Digital Education survey (the Dig Ed Survey 2025), analysed the data and ran workshops with student champions to understand what the findings meant. We created the template you can see on screen to challenge the students to look at the data, analyse it and come up with their own campaign ideas. Based on this, we identified some areas and projects we need to explore in the next academic year through our workstream.

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How did we do it?

Mapping with our strategic priorities; Cynefin and Co-creating futures
Relationship between us and the students

Working as part of team and as individuals
Discovering more layers as we went along

Creating 'Cynefin'

Professional	Sense of community	Mutual respect

To use a slightly cheesy analogy, our approach is a bit like peeling an onion. Each layer we uncover brings us closer to the core of what we’re trying to achieve. In Welsh we talk about ‘cynefin’, a feeling of belonging and connection to a place. This is central to the university’s strategy, to create this sense of cynefin for students at Cardiff University.�

A big part of this has been nurturing the relationship with the student champions, giving students a real voice. By giving student champions space to share their thoughts and ideas, we’ve helped build a sense of belonging and validation. It’s not just about improving their learning experience, it’s also about growing our community, learning from each other and helping students develop valuable skills.�

This approach has built strong, trusting relationships between staff and students. We’ve created a genuine feedback loop: we listen to students, act on what they tell us, and then go back to check if we’ve met their expectations. That’s helped create a safe, respectful, and encouraging environment for everyone.�

When our team is working in sync with students, sharing goals, communicating clearly, and supporting one another, the digital experiences we build naturally reflect that same harmony and purpose.

To give you an idea on how we ACTUALLY created this sense of Cynefin, we’ll paint a picture of the general way of working with the student champions. A few of our student champions came and hot desked in our offices a few days a week. We treated them like colleagues – they were part of the ‘tea round’ and general conversation in the office and they sat scattered among us, not on a separate bank of desks to one side or off in a side room.

We took them for coffee every now and again and had an informal chat about how it was all going – this informality and friendliness put them at ease to share what was really going on and created a sense of trust and community - really being part of the team. In one of these coffee meetings, a few of the student champions expressed how supported and part of the team they felt. These student champions were a few that had been part of the 2023-24 group and had come back to work with us for another year. They told us that it was the way of working that pulled them back in – had they not experienced feeling valued, supported and encouraged in the way they did, they may not have come back. They recognised that we’d gone the extra mile to make them feel part of the team and they really appreciated that.

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Results

Insight into student opinion
Relationships and partnership

Us

Improved digital experience
Their voices heard

Students

Soft skills and confidence
Work experience

Champs

So did any of this work?��The 2025 DigEd survey gave us some really encouraging results. 88% of students rated the quality of the Digital Learning Environment (DLE) as “Good,” “Excellent,” or even “Best Imaginable.” That’s a 3% improvement compared to the same question in last year’s Digital Insights Survey, and a huge leap from just 31% back in 2021. The stars on the slide represent student satisfaction, so you can see that huge leap happening in line with the Blackboard Ultra pilot, then a steady continuous improvement from there.

Even more exciting, the number of students who rated the DLE as simply “Excellent” jumped from 30% in 2024 to 45% this year in 2025. That’s a big shift, and it’s something we’ve also seen reflected in the free-text comments, where students specifically mention how much better the new digital learning environment feels.

One of the biggest takeaways for us has been that the relationships we’ve formed with the student champions has helped us learn how staff and students really interact with Learning Central: what works for them, what doesn’t, and where we can make things better. Through open communication, we also have a better understanding of how to effectively work with student champions going forward into future projects.

The key impact this work has had on the student body at large is an improvement in the digital experience, and the fact that the feedback loop is looping – their voices are being heard, acted on, and communicated back to them in an ongoing way.

We’ve listed a few of the outcomes for the champions there on the slide – soft skills and confidence, work experience – but let’s actually hear from one of our student champions. Maggie worked with us during the 2024-25 academic year, let’s hear what she has to say….

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Let’s hear from Maggie

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Where are we going next?

Our journey doesn’t end here. Our team is committed to continuously seeking feedback and improvement. We are planning to collaborate with student champions for the next academic year and summer. This ongoing partnership ensures that we stay tuned to the evolving needs and perspectives of our students.

Students have told us they want to be more aware of what support and guidance is already out there. They also want more support learning about and using AI – how will that affect their experience of using Learning Central?�

One piece of feedback we received was that some students prefer a game-based or playful learning approach instead of limiting themselves to demonstrations or being directed to support guides. In response to this, we are designing an escape room style activity which introduces Learning Central in a fun way, and signposts students to support.

One great idea that came directly from our workshops with student champions was to create an infographic showing what students can find in Learning Central.�

After looking at the DigEd survey results, students noticed that many of their peers were confused about how to navigate the platform and where to find key information. The infographic project was their own suggestion, something they came up with during the workshop to help make Learning Central clearer and more user-friendly for everyone. We’ve produced the infographic and it was included in the induction slides for students this year. We’re talking about rolling this out more widely and potentially using it for roadshows or other campaigns during the academic year. Students will be able to refer to it for signposting purposes, and staff can use it to quickly check they’re putting things in the right places.

One thing that came through clearly from our conversations with student champions was their interest in learning more about AI. Specifically, how to use it to support their studies. In response, we’re planning to work with them to create simple, practical guides that show how AI can be used ethically and effectively as a learning tool.

We also want to focus on promoting digital wellbeing. We're developing resources to help students understand what digital wellbeing means, and how they can maintain a healthy balance throughout their learning journey and beyond.

For this academic year, we’ve got 32 student champions working with us. The scheme has been rebranded to ‘Student Experience Partners’ to put more emphasis on improving the student experience and the fact that we’re working in a partnership – setting those expectations from the get-go. The work we’ll do with the students this year might be different to the last: projects are forever changing and we’re always adapting to what’s in front of us. What won’t change is that feeling of community and mutual respect. We want to keep creating a sense of cynefin, where every student, regardless of background, identity or learning needs, feels that their voice and opinion matters.

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Discover more: LTA Digital Education Team- Student Enablement Workstream

LTAcademy@cardiff.ac.uk

Here’s a little cartoon picture of some of the students we have been working with as student champions this year! We created this for anther project so it doesn’t capture everyone, but we thought we’d include it as a fun snapshot.

Looking back, this journey of co-creation with our student champions has been genuinely eye-opening. By creating a space where students felt safe, supported, and encouraged to share their ideas, we were able to build something that really responded to their needs. We worked in a continuous loop—listening, acting, and checking back in—which helped us stay connected and make sure we were on the right track.

What really made the difference, though, was the relationship we built with the students. Giving them a real voice and focusing on that partnership helped us shape a learning environment that feels more flexible, inclusive, and ready for the future.

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Diolch�Thank you�Tapadh liebh

Marianna: majzonovam@cardiff,ac.uk

Hannah: obrienh3@cardiff.ac.uk

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